Cholet, France — A major upset occurred at Tuesday’s Tour de France. I, John Howard Henderson, did not get lost.

The hundreds of cycling journalists who cover this event every year know me well. I’m the one who comes into the salle de presse (press room) every day, frazzled, broken and beaten. My hair is half torn out. My eyes are bloodshot. My heart is racing faster than all of these cyclists.

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David Millar of Great Britain during the third stage near Cholet, France. (AP Photo/Patrice Mollet)

Getting lost is part of the di rigueur at the Tour. However, in four previous years covering this remarkable, beautiful, maddening event, I turned getting lost into an art form. It once took me 45 minutes to get out of a parking lot. Hey, I didn’t know if I was leaving the right way. In France, if you get going in the wrong direction, you’ll be in Pamplona looking for bulls to trample you by the time you know you’re lost.